


The Joys of Youth

by jenwrld



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, M/M, Slice of Life, Slight Cursing, all they say is fuck tbh, if you squint theres some nomin, its just a cheesy ass slice of life, markhyuck crumbs, we have nice things around here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:09:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25173664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenwrld/pseuds/jenwrld
Summary: There's always romance going around the corridor halls, this high school is no different. Yukhei has a long crush on the class rep Zhong Chenle. What does Yukhei do if Chenle starts flirting with him out of the blue?
Relationships: Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas/Zhong Chen Le
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	The Joys of Youth

**Author's Note:**

> hello i just discovered how to use notes this is so exciting omg so this came to me bc i am working on a au and i was like well yukhei and chenle is a couple i don't see often let me pair them but what's their ship name umm so i looked through twitter and everyone was unsure so i decided to check ao3 and then i discovered they only had 19 fics together and i felt Bad so here it is ! check out tokyolattes's fic to take away the wholesome fuzzy feeling this fic is going to give you and replace it with Pain. ( ps i decided to call yukhei and chenle: lule bc i said so and bc its cute )

Yukhei didn’t expect to find himself in the situation that he was in currently. It was the last period of the day and he couldn’t seem to care about the lesson that was being taught. The only thing in his mind was the green-haired boy a few seats ahead of his. Unlike Yukhei, the boy was actually paying attention and was even writing notes while Yukhei just admired him. Yukhei couldn’t really say what was so enticing about the other boy, was it the mysterious aura? Was it that the boy had the prettiest smile in the whole universe? Was it his rather quiet demeanor? He didn’t know but he thinks its also what made him so exciting. That boy was none other than Zhong Chenle the class representative of course.

Yukhei also didn’t know when he started crushing on Chenle, he kinda always had. Chenle was quiet and reserved, he liked to keep to himself and Yukhei always wondered what the other boy was thinking, if he observed so much he must have some commentary to what he saw right? Yukhei didn’t think Chenle had any experience in the dating world though, Chenle was quite popular despite not talking much but everyone else also found the class rep extremely pretty. However, all those confessions always ended in the same ‘sorry, not interested in dating anyone right now’ that Chenle was notorious for. The taller boy didn’t have insane experience dating either as others would assume, he had maybe a girlfriend or two throughout his years but in his eyes, he definitely had more experience in romance than Chenle.

But if that truly was the case then why was Yukhei’s cheeks burning so bad? Well, he had gotten lost in his thoughts while staring at Chenle as he usually did but was brought back to reality when he heard a pen fall, Chenle’s pen at that. Chenle leaned over to pick it up but he also took the time to meet eyes with Yukhei which then he winked and flashed a quick smirk to the older boy, signifying he knew what Yukhei had been doing this whole time and Yukhei could not fell any less embarrassed by it. He put his head in his arms that were resting on his desk and replayed the events that had just happened.

The bell rang soon after and everyone ran out of the classroom but Yukhei stayed in his seat, still dazed about what had happened earlier. The last person Yukhei expected to see on the desk next to him was Chenle staring at him.

But there was Zhong Chenle laying in his arms that were set on the table and looking at the older boy tenderly as if he was waiting for Yukhei to look at him back in which Yukhei did. Yukhei just went back to his huddle that he was before. 

_Why was Chenle there? Why did he smile at me? Why did he wink oh my god_

Yukhei pondered relentlessly and in the middle of his overthinking he heard a knock and a call out for him “so are you going to stay there or are you going home?” it was Chenle and he looked up to meet eyes with him. He didn’t know how Chenle had moved so silently but the younger boy stood at the frame of the door with his bag over his shoulder. If Yukhei didn’t have a crush on Chenle he definitely did now. Chenle started walking off “what are you waiting for? Let’s go” the young boy shouted already down the hall. Yukhei hurriedly collected his stuff and chased after the other boy. Yukhei didn’t know what he was going to tell his two best friends Jaemin and Mark, he always walked home with them but they were not the main issue at hand, Yukhei could just bring them cake as an apology tomorrow.

Yukhei caught up the Chenle but he didn’t have the courage to walk next to him so he trailed a little behind the younger one. Their school made all the students use rectangular handheld bags similar to what Yukhei had seen in anime before, he liked them though, made some aesthetic instagram pictures out of them. Chenle still held his bag over his shoulder with one hand looking at the sky, Yukhei couldn’t describe it but Chenle just looked so _cool._ “What’s your favorite color?” the green-haired boy inquired. It was a sudden and very basic question but Yukhei appreciated Chenle’s attempt at small talk. 

“Hmm, that’s a hard question but if I had to chose it would be blue” there was a short pause after Yukhei said his response and Chenle simply hummed response. 

“Why?” Chenle questioned again

 _Why? Why? I don’t know?_ Yukhei didn’t know why it was his favorite color, he had never thought about it before.

“I find comfort in it, makes me feel warm and happy, so that’s why,” Yukhei replied only to have Chenle hum in response once again. But then Chenle came to a stop and turned to Yukhei 

“Thank you for walking me home Yukhei I really appreciate it” and Yukhei looked around frantically, when did he get here? He was in a nice looking neighborhood. then he looked at Chenle’s house it was a really nice looking house, it had two stories and a cute balcony. The house really matched Chenle, it didn’t make sense but it made sense to Yukhei. 

“No problem…” the taller boy awkwardly laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. Chenle didn’t enter his house though he just stepped closer to Yukhei. The taller boy not knowing what to do just froze and closed his eyes. Then he felt a warm feeling in his cheek and when the feeling left him he opened his eyes again. 

“I’ll see you around xuxi” Chenle smiled at him once again, the smile Yukhei loved so much. Chenle waved him goodbye and entered his home, leaving Yukhei dumbfounded outside of the younger’s home. 

_What just happened_ Yukhei wondered, and it suddenly hit him that Chenle had kissed him, on the cheek but a kiss was a kiss to Yukhei. He couched into a ball in embarrassment

_xuxi he called me fucking xuxi_

and just remembering Chenle’s words just made him lose his mind even more. What Yukhei didn’t know is that Chenle was sitting on his couch peeking out his window, giggling at the older boy because he was just so cute. Yukhei started heading home but soon realized he didn’t know where he was so he finally took out his phone only to come to the realization that he had 20 missed calls from Mark and Jaemin. Maybe he would need a little more than just cake to make it up for ghosting them. 

Yukhei sat in his room with music playing in the background, he felt like the protagonist of some stupid generic slice of life anime. Today had been insane and he simply just didn’t believe it. He had many questions but if he could only have the answer for one of them it would be _why_ that’s what Yukhei didn’t understand, why did Chenle do all of this. In Yukheis’s mind, nothing made sense as a motive for Chenle to everything he did. Until Yukhei remembered all of the very bad books he had read over his middle school years and came to the conclusion that it was a dare. That was the only reason that made sense to him, it was probably one of Chenle’s cool friends probably noticed that he watched Chenle a lot and dare him to mess with Yukhei. That had to be it.

.  
  


Every day Mark would go to Yukhei’s house to pick him up and then they would head over to pick up Jaemin last and head to school. However this time it was Mark and Jaemin picking up Yukhei, and saying they were angry was an understatement. Yukhei’s parents always very early in the morning and he didn’t have any siblings so he gave a key to Mark to wake him up if he ever overslept. But this time Mark and Jaemin stomped into Yukhei’s house in the middle of him putting his uniform tie on.

“You’re early” Yukhei smiled at them 

“Early? That’s all you have to say for yourself Mr. Wong Yukhei?” Jaemin exclaimed while he put his hands on his hips

“Dude you had us so worried, we thought someone kidnapped you” Mark sighed 

“Worried is an understatement! I was on the verge of tears, I can’t believe you did this to me Yukhei” Jaemin fake sobbed into Mark’s shoulder and Mark just patted the boy

Yukhei just rolled his eyes and chuckled at his best friends, he really loved them. He moved past the two boys in his bedroom doorframe and headed over to his kitchen. Yukhei lived in a one-story house but he really liked it, everything was so near and he didn’t have to walk stairs. Mark and Jaemin followed after.

“I was going to give you guys some cake that I had as an apology,” Yukhei said as he opened the glasses container.

“You think you can bribe us with some stupid chocolate cake? Well news flash it won’t work” Jaemin plopped into the living room couch

“Is it your mom’s chocolate cake?” Mark asked trying to take a peek at the cake from behind Yukhei

“Yes it is actually, she made it not too long after I had gotten home yesterday” Yukhei turned to Jaemin who now was peeking from the couch. 

“.... well, if that’s the case, we wouldn’t want your mom’s cake to go to waster right?” Jaemin laughed nervously. 

Yukhei shook his head “no no Jaemin you said it yourself what type of friend would I be if I just bribed you with some _stupid chocolate cake”_ Yukhei playfully imitated Jaemin’s voice.

“Oh fuck off!” Jaemin fell into the couch once more and waved his hand. 

Yukhei grabbed a fork and took a piece of cake to feed Mark who was hugging him from behind. Then he took another piece to go feed Jaemin who laid with his eyes closed 

“Open up” Yukhei poked Jaemin’s mouth with the fork and Jaemin opened his mouth. It was moments like these that Yukhei treasured the most, just him and his two best friends enjoying life and having fun. 

The three best friends eventually left Yukhei’s house and that’s when the interrogation happened, he knew he wasn’t going to get away with not telling Mark and Jaemin everything that happened with Chenle yesterday. 

“So where were you yesterday and why couldn’t you have bothered to even text back in the group chat or answer any call?” Mark crossed his arms

“Well… yesterday was Quite eventful haha” Yukhei rubbed the back of his neck and laughed nervously 

“Okay then we’re listening” Jaemin announced 

“Basically long story short, I walked Chenle home and he may have probably maybe kinda kissed me on the cheek or whatever” Yukhei became slightly flushed saying it out loud.

Mark and jaemin stopped walking and just stared at each other in confusion, Mark spoke first

“You’re joking right…”

Jaemin walked up to Yukhei and touched his forehead as if to check if he had a fever and Yukhei pushed him off. 

“Are you sure it wasn’t some horny weird fever dream?” Jaemin laughed when he noticed how red Yukhei had gone just by the mentioning of the word ‘horny’ 

“Fuck you Jaemin it most definitely wasn’t a dream,” Yukhei said while he touched his right cheek where Chenle had kissed him and this time it was Mark’s turn to laugh. Yukhei turned around flushed and started speed-walking toward the school leaving his two laughing best friends behind. 

.

It was already lunchtime and Yukhei hadn’t seen Chenle all-day, he didn’t have classes with him in the morning but still, he felt somewhat down that he didn’t even catch a glance of Chenle in the halls. Yukhei sat down next to Mark at the basketball court while they waited for Jaemin to come out of the food line. They always played basketball during lunch to help Mark practice, as he was in the basketball team captain. 

“I’m here losers” Yukhei and Mark both looked up to see Jaemin in front of them but Yukhei met eyes with a boy sitting on a table with his two friends not too far from where Yukhei was sitting. That boy was none other then Chenle of course. The boy who was previously speaking to Chenle looked the direction his friend was staring at and tapped the other boy next to Chenle to look up from his phone. To the right of Chenle was Huang Renjun and the boy who was texting was Lee Donghyuck. Yukhei was slightly intimidated by Chenle and his friends, there were just three pretty boys who hung out together and did pretty boy things and to Yukhei that sounded like the plot to mean girls. Donghyuck and Renjun looked at each other and started talking, too far away for Yukhei to hear. Suddenly Yukhei felt a hand rest on his shoulder, he turned to see it was Mark smiling at him.

“So who are you looking at that you missed our whole conversation?” Mark looked and saw the 3 other boys and Mark knew what he was going to do. 

“YO! DONGHYUCK! WHATS UP?” Mark shouted across the courtyard which made Yukhei cover his mouth. Yukhei turned to the three boys giggling to each other giving all attention to them and smiled awkwardly. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Yukhei whisper-shouted and Mark pulled Yukheis’s hand away from his mouth but before Mark could say another word they heard another voice shout.

“RENJUN IS THAT YOU? WHATS UP DUDE” this time it was Jaemin shouting which made them laugh but Yukhei could not be less embarrassed. 

“Cmon dude lets go say hi” Mark dragged Yukhei with him while Jaemin was already heading their direction.

When they got to the table Yukhei was the first to give Chenle a small hello, to which Chenle just shyly waved his hand hello. 

“Wait… how do you guys know each other?” Yukhei looked at his two best friends

“Well I know Donghyuck because he’s a cheerleader, cheer and basketball practice often take place at the same time,” Mark informed Yukhei

“And I know Renjun because he’s also in the drama club, maybe if you paid more attention to what we say you would know” Jaemin playfully rolled his eyes.

“So I see you found your missing boy huh” Donghyuck spoke up

“Oh yeah this guy” Mark flicked Yukhei’s cheek “maybe if he answered his phone I wouldn’t have had to bother you Donghyuck, sorry about that” 

“But I’m sure he had bigger issues to attend to, _right_ Yukhei?” Renjun teased him.

What Yukhei didn’t know is that not only was Chenle watching him from his couch Renjun was there too, giggling along with Chenle. The green-haired boy shushed Renjun as he and Yukhei were getting slightly red as they recalled yesterday’s events. It was no use though as Donghyuck continued the teasing 

“Chenle why did you cancel on me and Renjunniee” Donghyuck dragged his voice teasingly while he pulled on Chenle’s arm. 

“Yukheii why did you disappear on me and Markiee” Jaemin played along. Mark, Jaemin, and Yukhei sat down and talked with the other boys until the bell rang. Before all the boys parted ways to their separate classes Chenle grabbed Yukheis’s hand and gave him a folded paper. Chenle waved him goodbye and left Yukhei once again confused. 

When Yukhei arrived to class he opened Chenle’s note,

_‘Hii xuxi_

_Meet me in the art classroom after class, don’t forget to text your friends :P_

_\- lele ♡ ’_

Yukhei didn’t know how more in love with Chenle he could be but here he was, hand on this heart because Chenle was the absolute cutest in the world. He was about to break apart, not only did Chenle called Yukhei xuxi he also called himself lele. It was so cute it had Yukhei’s heart to ache. 

The bell rang sooner than Yukhei expected. Chenle didn’t attendant the last class of the day, he was probably busy and had a class excuse note. The class however felt too long, every 5 mins Yukhei was glancing at the clock waiting to get out. But eventually, the bell rang and they were dismissed. This time Yukhei told his friends to head off without him 

**_YUK TO THE HEI 3:00 PM_ ** ****

_head out without me guys I have somewhere to be_ 😅

**_NANA_ ** ✨ **_3:01 PM_ **

_its alright dude mark is also busy making out someone behind the school after practice today too_

**_YUK TO THE HEI 3:01 PM_ **

_wait omg who?_

**_NANA_ ** ✨ **_3:02 PM_ **

_their name might start with a d and end with a k_ ✨

**_KING MARK_ ** 🥵 **_3:03 PM_ **

_fuck off jaemin u dont think ive read your messages between u and one of my best players? someone named jeno i believe?_ 🤔

**_NANA_ ** ✨ **_3:03 PM_ **

_…_

_haha_

_well you see_

_um_

_look at the time i have to run sorry guys :///_

**_KING MARK_ ** 🥵 **_3:04 PM_ **

_thats what thought_ 😒

**_NANA_ ** ✨ **_3:05 PM_ **

_have fun having ur tongue down donghyucks throat mark_ 🙈🙈

**_KING MARK_ ** 🥵 **_3:05 PM_ **

_die_ 🙈🙈🙈

Yukhei chuckled reading the conversation, and Mark making out with Donghyuck made a lot of sense. When they were all eating lunch together Yukhei picked up on some slight tension between them like they were flirting in between words but Yukhei stayed quiet, it wasn’t his business anyway. 

.

Yukhei knocked on the art room door, he had never been inside the class despite passing by it every single day. He heard someone shout come in and so he did. There he found Chenle sitting in the middle of the room on the floor, he had moved all the tables to the wall so the room seemed empty. Chenle looked up to give him a warm smile

“You’re here” 

“Yeah… I am, what are you doing?” Yukhei looked around as he walked in.

There were bottles of paint everywhere and Chenle was wearing a very messy yet colorful apron and a big banner was spread in front of the small boy

“The school festival is soon and I was asked to do the welcome banner so here I am” Chenle smiled

“Would you like me to help?” Yukhei sat down in front of the banner that was dividing them. Chenle nodded in response and handed Yukhei an apron that was set on the table like it was waiting to be used. 

“I can’t draw very well but I can color in between the lines” Yukhei joked

“That’s fine with me” and so they sat there and worked, Yukhei got up and stepped over the banner to Chenle’s side to see what he was doing. What Chenle didn’t notice was Yukhei getting some paint on his finger and then placing it on Chenle’s cheek.  
“That was so cold what did you put on my face?” Yukhei backed away slowly trying not to laugh while Chenle touched his cheek only to find yellow paint on his fingers.

“Oh… so it’s going to be like this huh” Chenle dipped his finger in green paint and approached Yukhei slowly

“Hey.. Chenle haha what if you didn’t do that” Yukhei backed away slowly while Chenle only kept getting closer and so Yukhei ran only to have Chenle chase after him around the room. They ran after each other laughed, and smeared paint over each other. This time Chenle was chasing after Yukhei but the older boy had slipped on two paintbrushes only to fall back. When Chenle noticed Yukhei it was too late as he tripped on Yukhei and fell into him. Now Yukhei was sitting with Chenle on top of him. 

“Um.. haha sorry” Chenle laughed nervously trying to hide the subtle blush in his cheeks

“No worries” Yukhei looked away 

“Yknow Chenle….” he faced him “I really like you” Yukhei confessed and at that moment he saw Chenle’s face go from slightly rosy to very red 

“I really like you too Yukhei” Chenle also confessed and go closer to Yukheis’s face but this time Yukhei didn’t back away. 

They kissed

It was the moment they had both been waiting for so long and they could not have had it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> hiiii i hope u liked it <3 i have a twitter btw its @/RICHYUCK if u would like u could follow me or whatever 🙈 i want somewhere where i can speak to u guys so yea ! i also have a social media au coming out so sooo yea thank you for reading !


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